[voidlogic]

>>I Can’t Afford a Bachelor’s Degree

That is very true for some degrees, but I laugh when potential C-S students say this.

My first year of undergrad at well performing state university, I took loans and worked at the schools IT support center, 7.50/hr. The following summer I worked as a "Application Development Intern" and made $10/hr. For the following three years I worked part-time at a local software consulting firm and made $15/hr and part-time as a C-S TA and made 10/hr. I paid off my debt 2 months after graduation and I got lots of great experience.

My story is very typical of my C-S and IS major classmates. And now those same internships in my Alma mater's town are paying 17-18/hr.

So when people say that can't afford to get a C-S degree I think they either don't know the score or want to be one of the "too cool for school" kids in the valley, but lack the proper reasoning (I don't use that term for people with good reasons).

[Crito]

I would go so far as to say that even taking out student loans and not working through college could be reasonable for a CS student, provided that they were confident in their ability to graduate and prove their worth to employers.

I didn't do that; I worked through my CS degree much like you describe, but had I instead taken on debt then proceeded to get the same job offers that I did in this timeline, then I would have had my student loans wiped out within two years of graduating. CS grad earning potential is good enough to make taking on student loan debt not entirely insane; which is more than can be said of many majors.

(Of course that is assuming that I would have received those same offers, which is questionable if I did not have the work experience that got from working myself through college).

[balls187]

eh, not everyone will be successful, even with a CS degree.

I know programs at many schools are hyper competitive, so that will weed out the ones that can't hack it, but College is expensive.

That said, I liked the line from Rich Dad, Poor Dad that explained the difference between thinking "I can't afford it." and "How can I afford it?" The former just shuts off your thinking and accepts a situation.

Granted the OP is taking a creative approach to the problem.

[snowwrestler]

I'd argue that a person who is not going to be successful with a CS degree is probably also not going to be successful at starting a brand new accreditation system for higher education.

Getting a programming job requires some hustle. Establishing a new foothold in the hyper-comeptitive landscape of high ed probably requires a whole lot more hustle.

[steveklabnik]

How long ago was this? It matters, a lot. Tuition doubled at my school while I was there. I ended up with ~$72k in debt. And it wasn't any Ivy-league school.

[Crito]

While I was at university, I had a total of 18 months of 40-hours/week internships/co-ops. Those were at intern rates, but even so a year and a half of working took care of about $40k of expenses. I continued to work for some of those companies while I was in class, which covered the rest.

It's not easy, but if you work hard you can at the very least keep your debt reasonable.

(It is probably also worth mentioning that your debt was more than double the median student loan debt of people leaving college: ~$30k: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/student-loan-debt-m... Your school (and mine) was far more expensive than was necessary.)

[will_work4tears]

Let's be fair though. I knew one person, personally and closely, that went to school full time, worked a full time job and raised two girls (they weren't babies or toddlers though) and managed to get a 3.0+ GPA, but that doesn't mean everybody can do it.

I tried (not the raising the girls bit), with a full time job and going to school full time and my grades plummeted for that semester (which caused me to have to retake a couple classes and delayed my graduation a semester).

Even in a Mid-Missouri small town, making 7-8 bucks an hour working ~24 hours a week, it wasn't enough to survive, let alone survive AND pay "cash" for classes and books.

[Crito]

Aye, not everyone can do it. My backup plan, if dropping out appeared to be imminent, was to take on student loans. I think that for a CS major, taking on student loans isn't actually unreasonable, since CS majors have pretty decent earning potential.

What you really want to avoid is taking on student loans, then dropping out. If you do that then you'll be left with little but debt to show for it. If you instead try to work your way through school, but still drop out, at least you won't be in debt. Dropping out is far less damaging if you don't take on student loans, which is why I made student loans my backup plan.

[crazypyro]

Just curious, which small town in Missouri did you go to school?

[will_work4tears]

"Small" being relative, of course, it was Columbia, MO. I graduated from the University of Missouri.

[crazypyro]

Oh okay, I go to a school just south in an miniscule town by your standards then. Haha.

[dragontamer]

There's a "for profit" problem going on in the US. First of all, the Echo Boomers just went through college, and during that time period, there wasn't enough universities / colleges for everyone.

So unless you were a very top performer in your class, it was unlikely that you got into a state university. Instead, people got into for-profit universities they heard through internet ads or TV ads. (There is _always_ a spot for you in a for-profit university). For-profit universities were a bad deal, they manipulated their students and lied to them about their accreditation status. The problem didn't become known until maybe 2012 or so when the Obama Administration began to crack down on their shady practices.

The fact of the matter is, State Universities are the way to go, although they weren't an option for many people. Today, the average cost of an in-state university is $9000 / year. (This falls in line with my experience)

Even with books and stuff, that will only be ~$45k in loans for the average in-state university.

As the Echo Boomers leave college age, the college-age population is beginning to shrink again and it will be easier to get a degree now without resorting to overpriced out-of-state costs or for-profit schools.

[voidlogic]

I was a college freshmen in 2004. But I have family members doing something similar now. Consider the interns making 18/hr and working 25 hr a week. That is just over 23k a year which is very respectable for a student.

I think besides where you go to school mattering for tuition, people forget about housing. Where I went to school students today pay ~$300/mo per head for sharing an apartment or house. Welcome to the upper midwest, obviously we can all think of places where housing is far more expensive.

[steveklabnik]

Weird. I started in 2000, and I just went to the University of Pittsburgh, which isn't exactly an expensive city.